To know where our state libraries are going, it is important
first to know where they have been and where they are
now. Without going into this exhaustively, let me develop with
you for a few moments some of the things that have happened
to us in the five years since the Library Services Act became
the law of the land. I think we are all aware of the fact that the
r
improvement in our state library agencies is one of the principal
accomplishments of the Library Services Act. The publication,
State Plans under the Library Services Act. Supplement 2,
A
makes this quite clear. State after state reported strengthened
state library agencies in all parts of the country. Idaho, for
example, employed its first trained administrator and three
more professional librarians in the state agency. Kansas and
Mississippi added professional librarians and clerical assistants.
It was not just the small state agencies that did this, however;
even the New York State Library built on its existing
strength by adding specialists in Young Adult, Reference, and
Children's Services. In all, more than 115 field workers or consultants
were added to state agency staffs, an increase of more
than 100 per cent over the total field staffs in existence in 1956.
In addition, 285 other professional librarians were added.published or submitted for publicatio

McDonough, Roger H.

English

Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository

LS A AND STATE LIBRARY AGENCIESRoger H. McDonoughTo know where our state libraries are going, it is im-portant first to know where they have been and where they arenow. Without going into this exhaustively, let me develop withyou for a few moments some of the things that have happenedto us in the five years since the Library Services Act becamethe law of the land. I think we are all aware of the fact that therimprovement in our state library agencies is one of the princi-pal accomplishments of the Library Services Act. The publica-tion, State Plans under the Library Services Act. Supplement 2, Amakes this quite clear. State after state reported strengthenedstate library agencies in all parts of the country. Idaho, forexample, employed its first trained administrator and threemore professional librarians in the state agency. Kansas andMississippi added professional librarians and clerical assis-tants. It was not just the small state agencies that did this, how-ever; even the New York State Library built on its existingstrength by adding specialists in Young Adult, Reference, andChildren's Services. In all, more than 115 field workers or con-sultants were added to state agency staffs, an increase of morethan 100 per cent over the total field staffs in existence in 1956.In addition, 285 other professional librarians were added.It is significant that 15 states, in addition to adding staffrand other resources to their central agencies, established orstrengthened regional branches &r extension offices. Equallynoteworthy is the fact that more than 30 processing centers wereestablished under the stimulus of the Library Services Act andare now serving more than 500 libraries in the several states.Granted that it is largely the smaller libraries that are beingserviced in this manner, it is still true that this figure repre-sents just about one-fourteenth of the total number of public li-braries in the United States today. State agencies have playeda key part in this development, which represents an importantand significant step forward toward our announced goals of^larger library systems for the United States.Roger H. McDonough is Director ofthe New Jersey State Library.- 40 -Let us turn our attention now to some of the factors thatwill operate to increase the size and importance of state li-brary agencies in the next five to ten years. In the first place,the Library Services Act in some form or other will continue"for an indefinite period of time. The tremendous supportreceived in both houses of the Congress for the extension ofthe Act appears to justify this categorical statement. I be-lieve that, like the Smith-Hughes program in vocational ed-ucation and the George-Barden program in agriculture, therewill be a continuing partnership of federal and state agenciesin the library field for some time to come. Other importantfederal measures, such as the Depository Library Bill and theproposed revision of the National Defense Education Act, toname only two, also have implications for state library agen-cies. Clearly, these agencies must be equipped to handle theadministrative and leadership responsibilities that will resultfrom the American Library Association's increasingly impor-tant legislative program.A second important factor that must be considered is the"vastly increased population we shall have to contend with. Inthe next decade, the nation is going to have to provide for mil-lions of additional people, more of whom will have been for-mally educated than ever before. Thus, we can expect to havemore people, more of them will have attained higher levels ofeducation, and they are going to read more books. Inevitably, 1this will result in increased pressures upon the state agenciesto give leadership in helping municipalities and counties solvethe increasingly perplexing problems that will confront them.In this connection, it may be noted that the population explo-sion will accentuate the already complex political structureswithin our various state boundaries. In hundreds of instances,library districts now bear almost no relationship to the mar-keting and shopping habits of the areas involved. The need tocut across these artificial political boundaries is an obviousone, but it requires a high degree of statesmanship to over- Jcome the inherent parochialism of the population of the com-munities and counties involved. The accomplishments thathave already been recorded under the stimulus of the LibraryServices Act in developing larger units of service indicate thatthis is a fruitful field which should be pursued actively in theyears ahead.Still another reason for increased state participation inlibrary affairs is the change in sources of financial support.A decade ago, for example, only a very small amount of thetax money spent for public library service throughout the United- 41 -States came from state grants. In the next five years, that hadincreased substantially, as shown in the following table:Public Library IncomeLocal Public Funds State Grants Total1950 $102,935,905a $1,957, 172a $104,893,077*1955/56 162, 696,62lb 4,977, 176& 167,673,797***Includes Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico**Includes Alaska and Hawaiia. U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.Public Library Statistics - 1950 (Bulletin 1953, No. 9).Washington, D. C., U. S. Government Printing Office,[1954], p. 40.b. U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare."Statistics of Public Libraries 1955-56, " Biennial Sur-vey of Education - 1954-56. Washington, D. C., U. S.Government Printing Office, 1959 f p. 50.As recently as 1958, however, the total amount of state moniesappropriated for public libraries amounted to less than the to-tal federal monies appropriated that year under the Library Ser-vices Act. To show how swiftly things can change, the currentNew York State grants-in-aid program alone exceeds $8 mil-lion, more than the total for all the states authorized under theLibrary Services Act. Two years ago, New Jersey embarkedupon a state aid program with an initial appropriation of $400,000. Pennsylvania has just made an initial appropriation of$500, 000 for a similar grant program, and Massachusetts hasembarked upon a $1 million-plus program for public librarydevelopment in that state. As the sources of additional localtax revenues dry up, sheer necessity will force us to turn in-creasingly to state and federal support for library purposes. lThe implications of this for our state agencies are too obviousto require further comment.I have referred to the fact that the increasing complexityof our society presents us with certain kinds of problems in pro-viding for effective service outlets of various kinds at localand county level. A related aspect of this problem is observedat state level. I refer to the increasing need for research intoall kinds of activities in which the state now finds itself engaged,or will in the future. The problems of labor relations, highway- 42 -safety, water supply, airport control, and the continuing broadproblems of health, education, and welfare, for example, allrequire increasing analysis in depth. Legislative research a-gencies have increased in number and size in the past decade,and although we have little information about research unitsthat have been established in the executive branches of stategovernment--such as departments of education and welfare, Iam certain that most of us can cite specific instances of suchagencies in our own states. Obviously, the development ofthese research programs places additional burdens upon thestate libraries, which must build strong collections to satisfythe many- faceted research demands that will be made uponthem. Many of the agencies represented here today are par-ticipating in the cooperative exchange program for legislativeresearch materials initiated under the aegis of the NationalLegislative Conference of the Council of State Governments.However, we need more comprehensive documents exchangeprograms that will cover the publications of executive depart-ments of state government, as well as special commission andlegislative reports. Few state libraries are now in a positionto offer well-rounded documents exchange programs, and weneed to take active steps in the near future to take care of theobvious needs confronting us in this area.One piece of unfinished extension business touches one ofthe principal weaknesses of the American library system: ourfailure to provide adequate reference facilities at local level.In the majority of small American communities, the ordinarycitizen cannot expect to obtain adequate information in responseto questions of only average difficulty. The reason, of course,is that too many small libraries lack the needed materials, thetrained staff to service them, or both. The systems of librar-ies toward which we are striving will eventually help to correctthe situation, but, meanwhile, an information network, in whichthe state library agencies would logically be the principal co-ordinating agents, would help plug the gap. There are all sortsof interesting possibilities here, including the use of short-wave radio and UHF equipment, as well as high-speed telephon-ic facsimile reproduction units, to tie the various libraries inthe state together in an intelligence network. There is a grow-ing interest in this subject, and I hope that within a very fewyears we shall see some truly significant experiments beingmade in this direction.If these intelligence networks are to operate success-fully, there must be strong reference and research collectionsin strategically located centers to back up the local units. Ob-- 43 -viously, it is sensible and economical to build upon existingstrengths wherever possible, but, where there is a completeabsence of any large library in a given geographical area, itmay be necessary to create libraries out of whole cloth. AsI have already indicated, 15 states have initiated or strength-ened existing branches under the Library Services Act. Isuspect that where new branches have been created, it is be-cause there was a clear need to supply a strong unit in an areathen lacking one. In considering how we can best utilize theTmonies that are made available to us in the form of federal andstate grants-in-aid, it is possible that a fair share of thesefunds might well be employed in developing strong strategiccenters instead of turning over all the money to the municipal-ities and counties to improve and expand local services. Astrong state branch supplementing the collections and *JC.vicesof local libraries and providing leadership and guidance wouldbe of inestimable help in raising library standards in a givenL region.Mention should also be made of the necessity to strength-en services to the various departments and agencies of stategovernment by aiding in the development of departmental col-lections. Washington State is now working in this direction,and the New Jersey State Library is cooperating with suchdepartments as Labor and Industry, Health, Agriculture, andour own Department of Education in developing library facili-ties in the new buildings which are now under construction forthese agencies. As I see it, state libraries will gr^ua.11^ cometo serve as core libraries serving departmental libraries muchin the manner that a university library serves its satellite fa-^cilities. Another related area which as yet has been little de-veloped is service to the penal and correctional institutions.Only one or two statesas, for example, New York and Mary-land now have institutional library supervisors, but undoubt-edly this pattern will be followed by other states in the future.Whether such positions are placed under the state libraries orin the particular agencies involved, it seems certain that ourstate libraries will bear some share of the responsibilities forproviding these needed services.Still another field with which state library agencies mustconcern themselves is that of collecting, interpreting, and dis-tributing statistical information. Although the Library ServicesBranch has made tremendous strides in this area, it is unableto do the entire job, and there is a clear need to obtain precise,accurate, and up-to-date data at state level. John Eastlick, inhis report The Sixties and After. ^ emphasized this very strongly- 44 -by pointing out that at the time he was writing his report, itwas simply not possible to obtain comparable and accurate dataon all the 50 states. I am certain that Phillip Monypenny andhis survey team are experiencing similar problems along thisline.,_It is also possible that our state agencies may be calledupon to serve as central storage facilities for other librariesin their state. There is no reason, for example, why smallor medium-sized public libraries should maintain outdatedbooks or long runs of 19th-century periodicals when micro-film copies of the originals may be obtained quickly from acentral source. Many local libraries would gladly weed theircollections drastically if they were certain that the materialswould be on call at their state library. The New Jersey StateLibrary, under a law passed in 1948, has been operating a de-posit and exchange library service of this sort, but, becauseof limited space, it has not been able to engage in the activityin a full-scale way. It is hoped that our projected new build-ing will permit us to step up our approach to this problem.As you see, I have ticked off, in fairly rapid order, anumber of reasons to support my feeling that the state libraryagency is destined to grow and flourish in the United States. Ifind it significant that one of the chief conclusions reached byJohn Eastlick in his above-mentioned report relates to the fu-ture place of state library agencies:The growth of the state library agency in the past five yearsis the outstanding phenomenon in recent library history.State library agencies, however, are not developing uni-formly and are not assuming the same responsibilities ofleadership in all states. State library agencies in generalhave no responsibility to, or authority over, institutions ofhigher education, have only general advisory responsibilityto public libraries, may or may not have advisory respon-sibility to school libraries, and frequently operate by per-suasion rather than authority.Mr. Eastlick went on to recommend:It should be the program of the American Library Associa-tion to encourage state library agencies to expand theirsupervisory functions. These institutions should also be-come major sources of information about the libraries oftheir state. 5All of this at once excites and frightens me. I see a tre-mendous challenge in the vistas that lie ahead, and I would facethem unflinchingly if only I could tell you where we are to findthe trained, qualified people who are needed to take on these- 45 -added responsibilities. After five years of the Library Ser-vices Act and four years of National Library Week, librarians,who have been working tremendously hard to improve libraryservices at local and state levels, now stand poised on thethreshold of a real breakthrough into new and exciting libraryfrontiers, but we don't have the trained people to do the job.Somehow, we must find solutions to the problems of staffingthat plague us all, in order that we can push forward in a co-ordinated program based on federal, state, and local coopera-tive efforts.The role of the state library in this total picture is a pe-culiar one, perhaps because we are, in most instances, ad-visory agencies rather than supervisory ones. This calls fora special kind of leadership. If we get too far out in front ofthe librarians and trustees in our respective jurisdictions, wemay be accused of being dictators, self-seekers, or worse. Ifwe hang back a little on the theory that library developmentmust be approached democratically (frequently this means atthe level of the slowest paced), we may be accused of failingto meet our responsibilities. Ours, then, is the task of lead-ing, without seeming to lead (avoiding either paternalism ormaternalism in the process), and of serving as an inspirational,cohesive, and coordinating agency for all the library elementsin the state. It is an exasperating, exciting, exhaustive, re-warding, and frequently amusing, task. And since I am say-ing this in the family--! think we do it rather well.References1. Moshier, Louise Marion. State Plans under the Li-brary Services Act. Supplement 2. Washington, D. C. , U. S.Government Printing Office, [i960],2. Lorenz, John G. , and Carl, Herbert A. "The Li-brary Services Act after Four Years, " ALA Bulletin. 55:534-540, June 1961.3. Eastlick, John T. The Sixties and After, SpecialReport for Federal Relations Committee, Library Administra-tion Division, ALA. Chicago, American Library Association,[i960]. Also reprinted in part in: ALA Bulletin. 55:556-558, June 1961.4. Eastlick, The Sixties and After, p. 4.- 46 -5. Eastlick, ALA Bulletin, p. 558.Additional ReferencesBrahm, Walter T. "State Libraries, " Library Trends,10:87-103, October 1961.National Association of State Libraries. "The Role ofthe State Library. " Folded leaflet. 1956.Beach, Fred F. , et al. The State and Publicly SupportedLibraries, Structure and Control at the State Level. Washing-ton, D. C. , U. S. Government Printing Office, 1956.Schick, Frank L. "Introduction, " Library Trends, 10:5-9, July 1961.- 47 -

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